Software control of half duplex radio data transceivers

ABSTRACT

Apparatus and method for providing a data interface to a plurality of radio transceivers such as between a personal computer or other information processing device to one or more radio transmitter/receiver systems having a serial data interface in a manner that provides control of the radio and means to send and receive data via the radio without regard to the characteristics of the radio or its serial interface. A common control protocol is employed that exposes the functionality necessary to control the radio transmitter/receiver device in a generic manner. The invention may communicate with the data terminal equipment via a widely-available data interface or network protocol, such as an asynchronous serial interface, the Universal Serial Bus (USB), or an Internet Protocol (IP) network. The invention also provides a means of implementing synchronous serial framing formats through software implementation, allowing compatibility with future data systems to be achieved without requiring hardware modifications.

PRIORITY CLAIM UNDER 35 U.S.C. §119(e)

This patent application claims the priority benefit of the filing dateof a provisional application Ser. No. 60/573,984, filed in the UnitedStates Patent and Trademark Office on May 24, 2004.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a divisional application of and claimspriority from related, co-pending, and commonly assigned U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/007,774 filed on Dec. 8, 2004, entitled“Apparatus and Method for Providing a Data Interface to a Plurality ofRadio Transceivers” also by David Keppler and Nathan Lutchansky.Accordingly, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/007,774 is hereinincorporated by reference.

STATEMENT OF GOVERNMENT INTEREST

The invention described herein may be manufactured and used by or forthe Government of the United States for governmental purposes withoutthe payment of any royalty thereon.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Radio transmitter/receiver systems designed and built since the 1950'soften include data communications capabilities in addition to or insteadof voice/audio communications capabilities. The most common interfacefor connecting data communication equipment (DCE) like radiotransmitters and receivers to data terminal equipment (DTE) such aspersonal computers is the serial interface, defined by the ElectronicsIndustry Alliance (EIA) standards RS-232, RS-422, RS-530, and others.

Serial interfaces provide a common electrical interface for sending andreceiving streams of data as a sequence of voltage levels in which onevoltage level indicates a digital one (1) and a different voltage levelindicates a digital zero (0). Some serial interfaces, known assynchronous serial interfaces, provide timing information in the form ofa separate clock signal by which the transmitter and receiversynchronize the rate at which data flows through the interface.Asynchronous serial interfaces do not have this separate clock signaland rely on oscillators within each device to maintain implicit timing.Serial interfaces may also contain separate control signals to providestatus information, enable and disable the flow of data, and/ormanipulate the state of the DCE.

Radio transmitter/receiver systems in use today may implement any one ofa wide range of different serial standards and configurations, but themost common DTE in use today is the personal computer (PC) which onlyprovides an asynchronous RS-232 interface. As a result, PCs are unableto utilize many radio transmitter/receiver systems that provide a serialinterface based on a different standard, and are unable to takeadvantage of advanced wireless communications protocols that require asynchronous serial interface between the PC and the radio.

To alleviate this incompatibility, specialized hardware in the form ofadd-on boards is commercially available that augments standard PCs withadditional serial interfaces that are compatible with some radios.However, this hardware is only compatible with a limited number ofcommonly-used radios, and the add-on boards are specific to theform-factor of the PC, depending on whether the PC is intended for adesktop, industrial, or mobile environment.

Interfacing with radio transmitter/receiver systems using serial linksalso imposes additional restrictions on the DTE. Most radio equipmentoperates only in a half-duplex mode, in which a radio device is unableto transmit and receive simultaneously. The DTE must control thedirection of data exchange by manipulating the “push-to-talk” (PTT)control signal on the serial interface to activate and de-activate thetransmitting circuitry on the radio device. Further, many radiotransmitters impose additional time delay requirements whentransitioning between transmit and receive mode; for example, atransmitter may require several hundred milliseconds for the amplifiersto ramp up to full power before data may be sent, or the data modulatormay require a short delay to finish flushing all of the data to betransmitted out of the internal buffers. These timing requirements oftennecessitate custom software on the DTE that is specific to the serialinterface circuitry and/or radio system.

For some uses, particularly in the military environment, a single PCmust be able to interface with multiple radios to provide services thattranslate between or aggregate the communications capabilities ofmultiple radio links. These radios are often located distant from oneanother due to antenna positioning requirements, physical spaceconstraints, or safety reasons. Standard serial interfaces typicallyfrustrate the implementation of such multi-radio systems due to the highcost and technical difficulty of extending serial links more than a fewfeet from the DTE to the DCE. Providing a simple and low-cost means ofextending the range of the link between a PC and a radio would increasethe potential capabilities of radio data systems.

Prior art exists that solves some, but not all, of these issues in alimited environment for some radio systems. Remote control units forradios are able to extend the serial link between the DTE and the radiofor hundreds of feet or even several miles, but these units are specificto a particular model of radio system and the serial interface is stillunlikely to be compatible with a standard PC. Converters are availableto interface from certain radio-specific serial interfaces to a commonPC serial interface, but these converters prevent the use of moreefficient data encoding mechanisms and do not provide a means ofextending the distance between DTE and radio.

OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method andapparatus for interfacing with radio transmitter/receiver systems havinga serial interface that supports a plurality of serial interfacestandards.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method andapparatus for controlling the operation of and sending and/or receivingdata to and from a radio transmitter/receiver system through a standarddata interface available on common PCs.

It is still a further object of the present invention to provide amethod and apparatus for providing a common control protocol tointerface with a radio transmitter/receiver system that is independentfrom the characteristics of the particular radio.

It is yet still a further object of the present invention to provide amethod and apparatus for extending access to a radiotransmitter/receiver system over long distances by carrying a commoncontrol protocol over existing data networks.

An additional object of the present invention is to provide a method andapparatus for encapsulating and decapsulating data that is sent andreceived via a radio transmitter/receiver system in a plurality ofserial formats, where the formats are implemented in general-purposeprocessing units and can be updated electronically.

The invention disclosed herein provides a method and apparatus forconnecting a DTE such as a PC or other information processing device toa radio transmitter/receiver system in a manner that allows the DTE tocontrol the radio and send and receive data via the radio using a commoncontrol protocol independent of the type of radio device in use andwithout regard to the serial interface standard supported by the radiodevice. The DTE may communicate with the invention via a data interfaceor network protocol commonly found on PCs, such as an asynchronousserial interface, the Universal Serial Bus (USB), or an InternetProtocol (IP) network.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 depicts a block diagram of the components of the inventionrelative to the systems with which it commonly interfaces.

FIG. 2 depicts a detailed block diagram of the invention.

FIG. 3 depicts the synchronous data sampler/driver of the presentinvention.

FIG. 4 depicts the DTE interface circuits in three different embodimentsof the present invention.

FIG. 5 depicts the flow of data through one of the embodiments of thepresent invention.

FIG. 6 depicts the flow of data through alternate embodiments of thepresent invention.

FIG. 7 depicts a flow diagram of the steps for interpreting commandsdefined in the common control protocol of the present invention.

FIG. 8 depicts a flow diagram of the steps for transmitting data viasynchronous serial interfaces.

FIG. 9 depicts a flow diagram of the steps for receiving data viasynchronous serial interfaces.

FIG. 10 depicts a typical application scenario for the presentinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring to FIG. 1, a preferred embodiment of this invention comprisesa general-purpose central processing unit (CPU) 100, a radio data serialinterface circuit 110, a radio control serial interface circuit 120, anda data terminal equipment (DTE) interface circuit 300.

CPU 100 executes a program that interacts with the DTE through a controlchannel via the DTE interface 300, with which it exchanges commandsusing the common control protocol. These commands enable the DTE to passdata through the invention via the radio data serial interface 110 andthe radio control serial interface 120 to the radio transmitter/receiverdevice.

Referring to FIG. 2, serial interface 200 is depicted in detail, showingthe components present in both the radio data serial interface 110 andthe radio control serial interface 120. Serial interface 200 comprises auniversal serial interface driver 210, a selectable push-to-talk (PTT)personality conversion logic circuit 220, a clock generator 230, atransmit clock selector switch 240, a data signal switch/multiplexer250, a universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) 260, and asynchronous data sampler/driver 270. The push-to-talk personalityconversion logic 220 is not present in the radio control serialinterface circuit 120.

Universal serial interface driver 210 converts between one of manyselectable serial interface electrical standards and the digital logiclevels used by the other components of the invention, providing a meansof connecting to data serial interfaces on many types of data radios.Clock generator 230 and transmit clock selector switch 240, whennecessary for synchronous operation, provide the selected transmit clocksignal 241 for the synchronous data sampler/driver 270, and can sourcethe clock from the serial interface transmit clock signal 213, theserial interface receive clock signal 214, or the clock generator 230.Data signal switch/multiplexer 250 activates either the UART 260 or thesynchronous data sampler/driver 270, depending on whether anasynchronous mode or a synchronous mode is selected. UART 260, whenactive, receives asynchronous, character-framed data from the datasignal switch/multiplexer 250 and passes the data by octet to the CPU100; and receives data to be transmitted from the CPU 100 (see FIG. 1)and transmits it through the data signal switch/multiplexer 250 incharacter-framed format. Synchronous data sampler/driver 270, whenactive, receives synchronous data from the data signalswitch/multiplexer 250 and passes the data by octet to the CPU 100 (seeFIG. 1); and receives data to be transmitted from CPU 100 (see FIG. 1)and transmits it through data signal switch/multiplexer 250. Synchronousdata sampler/driver 270 can be updated electronically to support anyserial data format. The present embodiment of the invention supportsseveral different formats, including character framing, High-level DataControl Link (HDLC), and a well-known method for framing characters onnoisy radio channels. PTT personality conversion logic circuit 220,present only in the radio data serial interface circuit 110, creates aselectable logical mapping between PTT signal 221 supplied by CPU 100and the control signals exposed on radio data serial interface 219.

Referring to FIG. 3, synchronous data sampler/driver 270 comprises twogeneral-purpose processing units, one of which is sampler 271 and one ofwhich is driver 272. Sampler 271 reads data from serial interfacereceive signal 212, governed by receive clock signal 214, and convertsthe signal into octets to be passed to CPU 100 (see FIG. 1) for deliveryto the DTE. The driver 272 receives octets from the CPU 100 (see FIG. 1)and sends them in a serial fashion to the serial interface transmitsignal 211, governed by the selected transmit clock signal 241. Theprograms executed by sampler 271 and driver 272 determine the serialdata framing and synchronization format implemented by the invention,and thus the invention is able to support new framing formats through asoftware update without any hardware modifications.

Three methods for interfacing the invention to the DTE are shown in FIG.4. In one embodiment of the invention, DTE interface 300 (see FIG. 1) iscomprised of a network interface 310 used to send and receive data overa data network. The DTE communicates with the invention by establishinga connection using a network protocol such as Transmission ControlProtocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), over which it performs commandsusing the common control protocol.

In another embodiment of the invention, DTE interface circuit 300 (seeFIG. 1) is comprised of a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface 320,which connects to the corresponding USB interface on the DTE. The DTEperforms commands using the common control protocol encapsulated withinstandardized USB protocols.

In yet another embodiment of the invention, DTE interface circuit 300(see FIG. 1) is comprised of an asynchronous serial port 330, whichconnects to a serial port on the DTE. The DTE performs commands usingthe common control protocol on the serial link thus established.

The flow of data through the invention in the first embodiment is shownin FIG. 5. The use of a data network, in this case the TransmissionControl Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), provides the communicationsmedium between the invention and the DTE, over which the common controlprotocol and data are carried. Three TCP/IP ports are utilized:bi-directional TCP/IP common control protocol port 710 carries thecommands and responses for the common control protocol, including thedata to be transmitted via the radio transmitter, between the DTE andcommon control protocol interpreter 400; uni-directional TCP/IP datareceive port 720 which carries the data received by the radio receiver;and bi-directional TCP/IP radio control port 730 which carries thecontrol data between the DTE and the radio transmitter/receiver devicecontrol serial port. Buffers 711, 721, 731, 732 are utilized between theserial interfaces 110, 120 and the DTE to accommodate network and DTEtiming issues and latency common to PC and data network operation.

The flow of data through the invention in the second and thirdembodiments is shown in FIG. 6. The Universal Serial Bus (USB) orasynchronous serial interfaces provide the communications medium for thecommon control protocol and data, utilizing two physical or logicalconnections between the invention and the DTE. A first USB/Serial portconnection 810 carries the commands and responses for the common controlprotocol, including the data to be transmitted via the radiotransmitter, between the DTE and the common control protocol interpreter400. This connection also carries the data received by the radioreceiver, necessitating the use of a well-known encapsulation mechanismto allow the DTE to separate the protocol responses from the receiveddata. The second USB/Serial port connection 820 carries the control databetween the DTE and the radio transmitter/receiver device control serialport. Buffers 811, 812, 821, 822 are utilized between serial interfaces110, 120 and the DTE to accommodate DTE latency common to PC operation.

CPU 100 (see FIG. 1) of the invention executes a program 400, shown inFIG. 7, that processes commands and returns replies formatted in thecommon control protocol. These commands may cause the radio transmitterto be activated or de-activated, cause data to be sent to the radio dataserial interface circuit for transmission via the radio device, or setor retrieve parameters affecting the operation or configuration of theinvention. The program normally waits in an idle state for commands tobe received 401.

When a command is received to instruct the invention to activate theradio transmitter 411, the invention verifies that the radio device isnot currently receiving data 412, sends a response/acknowledgement toDTE 413, activates the PTT signal 414, waits a pre-determined period oftime for the radio transmitter to become ready 415, and returns to idlestate 401.

When a command is received to instruct the invention to send data viaradio 421, the invention copies the specified data from the DTE to theradio data serial interface circuit to be sent by the radio transmitter422, and returns to an idle state 401.

When a command is received to instruct the invention to de-activate theradio transmitter 431, the invention flushes the remaining data from thetransmit buffer 432, sends a response/acknowledgement to the DTE 433,waits a pre-determined period of time for the radio transmitter tobecome idle 434, de-activates the PTT signal 435, and returns to theidle state 401.

Other commands may allow the DTE to request that the invention query 441or store 442 configuration parameters or statistics 443 relating to theoperation of the invention.

Driver 272 (see FIG. 3) software executes the following steps, shown inFIG. 8: an octet to be transmitted is received 510 from the CPU 100 (seeFIG. 1); the octet is formatted into an internal buffer according to theencoding method specified for the currently-used framing format 520;when a clock edge is detected 530 on selected transmit clock signal 241(see FIG. 3), the next bit of the internal buffer is transmitted 540 onthe serial interface transmit signal 211 (see FIG. 3); if all bits inthe internal buffer have been sent, the program returns to the start toreceive another octet 550 from the CPU 100 (see FIG. 1).

Sampler 271 (see FIG. 3) software executes the following steps, shown inFIG. 9: when a clock edge is detected 610 on the serial interfacereceive clock signal 214 (see FIG. 3), a data bit is sampled 620 fromthe serial interface receive signal 212 (see FIG. 3); if sampler 271(see FIG. 3) has synchronized itself with the incoming data stream, theprogram continues, otherwise it returns to the start 630; the incomingbit is decoded 640 based on the rules specified in the currently-usedframing format and combined with the other bits in the internal buffer;if sampler 271 (see FIG. 3) has received a complete octet of data 650,it delivers the decoded octet to the CPU 660; and the program returns610 to waiting to receiving another bit.

FIG. 10 depicts a typical application scenario for the presentinvention. One or more radio transmitter/receiver devices with datacapability 910 are each attached to the invention 920 via both the radiodata serial interface and the radio control serial interface, and thefunctionality of the radio transmitter/receiver devices is exposed tothe DTE 940. The invention may be connected to the DTE through a datanetwork 930 using a network link 950, or the invention may be connectedthrough a direct link 960 such as USB or asynchronous serial.

While the preferred embodiments have been described and illustrated, beit known and understood that the present invention is not limited tothose precise embodiments described herein, and that varioussubstitutions, equivalents, adaptations and modifications of theinvention may be made thereto by those skilled in the art withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by theappended claims. Accordingly, it is to be understood that the presentinvention has been described by way of illustration and not limitation.

1. In a digital communications system comprising half duplex radiotransceivers, data terminal equipment (DTE), and means for interfacingsaid transceivers and said DTE, a method for providing software controlof said means for interfacing so as to accomplish half duplex digitaldata communications by causing said means for interfacing to perform thesteps of: waiting in idle state for a command; WHEN a command isreceived to activate said transceiver, THEN checking if data iscurrently being received; WHEN data is not currently being received,THEN sending a command acknowledgement to said DTE; activating apush-to-talk (PTT) signal; waiting for a predetermined transceiverramp-up period; and returning to said step of waiting in idle state;OTHERWISE, waiting a predetermined amount of time for said transceiverto be ready to transmit OTHERWISE, continuing to wait in idle state fora command; WHEN a command is received to send data via said transceiver,THEN copying said data from said DTE and buffering said data intransceiver; and returning to said step of waiting in idle state;OTHERWISE, continuing to wait in idle state for a command; WHEN acommand is received to deactivate transceiver, THEN flushing remainingdata from a transceiver buffer; checking for said transceiver buffer toempty; IF said transceiver buffer is not empty, THEN returning to saidstep of flushing OTHERWISE, sending an acknowledgement to said DTE thattransceiver buffer is empty; waiting a predetermined period of time fortransceiver to become idle; deactivating said push-to-talk (PTT) signal;and returning to said step of waiting in idle state; OTHERWISE,continuing to wait in idle state for a command; and WHEN a command isreceived to query configuration parameters and statistics of saidtransceiver, THEN querying and storing said configuration parameters andstatistics; sending an acknowledgement and value of said parameters andsaid statistics to said DTE; and returning to said step of waiting inidle state; OTHERWISE, continuing to wait in idle state for a command.2. Method of claim 1, further comprising a method for driving data,comprising the steps of: receiving a set of data bits to be transmittedfrom said DTE; formatting said set of data bits into an internal bufferin accordance with an encoding scheme; detecting a clock edge of atransmit clock signal; transmitting the next bit of an internal bufferon a serial interface transmit signal upon detecting said clock edge oftransmit clock signal; and IF all bits of said internal buffer have beensent, THEN returning to said step of receiving a set of data bits to betransmitted from said DTE; OTHERWISE, returning to said step ofdetecting a clock edge of a transmit clock signal.
 3. Method of claim 1,further comprising a method for synchronously sampling data, comprisingthe steps of: detecting a clock edge of a receive clock signal; samplingan incoming data bit from a serial receive signal; IF the samplingprocess is synchronized with said receive signal data stream, THENdecoding said incoming data bit according to a framing format; andstoring said decoded data bit in an internal buffer; OTHERWISE,returning to said step of detecting a clock edge of a receive clocksignal; IF a complete set of data bits has been decoded, THEN deliversaid decoded set of data bits to said DTE; and returning to said step ofdetecting a clock edge of a receive clock signal; OTHERWISE, returningto said step of detecting a clock edge of a receive clock signal. 4.Wherein said set of data bits of claim 2 is an octet.
 5. Wherein saidset of data bits of claim 3 is an octet.